"[O]ne of the most valuable achievements of this book is its demonstration that this topic is as delightfully complex and problematic as any historian could desire. This book is a fascinating, subtle examination of love, youth, and courtship in seventeenth-century Dutch art and a significant contribution to our understanding of this culture and its art." Erin L. Webster, Art Gallery of Ontario; University of Toronto at Scarborough, Sixteenth Century Journal
"This book admirably fills a long-standing need for a critical interpretation of scenes of merry gatherings...A main strength of this study is that it considers the literary material of marriage manuals, songbooks, poetry, and emblems in conjunction with close visual analysis as keys to interpretation. Another strength is that the author emphasizes how the visual material may have been regarded and interpreted in its time...A third strength is the range of interpretations proposed, and their presentation as intentionally fluid and ambiguous." Renaissance Quarterly
"Although many of the artists' names and their works are familiar to specialists, Nevitt probes their content in novel ways.... He writes with a light touch that includes humor, witty turns of phrase, and personal insight, as well as intelligence and wisdom. A splendid, original, richly rewarding book, the second contribution to Cambridge Universtity Press's four-part series on Netherlandish Visual Culture." Historians of Netherlandish Art Review of Books
"Rich in ideas...beautifully produced." CAA Reviews
Product Description
A series of interconnected essays on love and courtship as themes in Dutch art, this study examines pictorial subjects and artists that have never been considered together: paintings and prints of "garden parties" by David Vinckboons and Esaias van de Velde, merry companies by Willem Buytewech, paintings of courting couples observing peasant festivities by Jan Miense Molenaer, two portraits by Frans Hals and two important landscape etchings by Rembrandt. Nevitt places these works in the context of the culture of love at the time, which manifested itself in the social practices of courtship and a variety of amatory texts.
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